Things are what they are and will be what they wil
by SageK
Summary: Loyd and Shea trapped in a prison riot


"How the hell did you not get killed your fist day in lock up?" Shea Daniels demanded with a grunt, shoving a large storage locker against the door frame in order to provide some obstacle for anyone attempting to enter the small store room. "Minimum security and you still manage to get your dumb ass shanked."

Sitting against a wall, pale (well, paler than usual) and clammy, pressing a blood covered cloth to his stomach, Lloyd Lowery managed to dredge up enough of his usual attitude to snip, "Contrary to what my lean physique and distaste for pain implies, I've had the misfortune to learn that I can take a surprising amount of blunt force injuries."

Shea looked down at the other man as the sounds of rioting prisoners in the halls outside drifted into the room. It had only been by chance that he'd been nearby when some dude who looked like they ate guys like Lowery for breakfast decided to shove a sharpened toothbrush into the annoying doctor's gut and an all out riot had erupted around them. While everyone else was trying to beat the shit out of each other and the COs, he'd snagged Lloyd and shoved him into the relative safety of the side room.

"Got beat up a lot as a kid." It wasn't really a question, as Shea was pretty damn sure Lloyd got his ass kicked on a daily basis. His inability to keep his mouth shut assured that.

"Kid, teenager, adult…"Lowery mused, grimacing and pressing harder on his stomach. "I will admit that this is new."

"Yeah, well, I've seen people get gut shot before," Shea said, trying to sound unconcerned. Sometimes guys survived that kind of wound, sometimes they didn't. There wasn't much he could do other than stay calm and make sure no one kicked the other man's head in until the screws got shit under control and Lowery got to go to the infirmary. "Takes a while to bleed out."

"Not if a major blood vessel is hit," Lloyd muttered, falling into his usual lecturing mode. "A more modest size blood vessel would result in a slow leak… yeah, anywhere from 30 minutes to several hours, possibly even a day if the bleed was slow enough. Then again, more than 25% of anterior abdominal stab wounds do not penetrate the peritoneal cavity, which I really hope is the case here."

As long as the man was spouting out things like that, Shea figured he had to be doing okay.

"Of course, bleeding out isn't my only concern. If say the stomach or liver are compromised, there is a major risk of infection because the GI tract has a lot of bacteria that are part of it's normal flora, but don't belong in the abdominal cavity. Plus the closer the wound is to the stomach the greater the enzymatic damage to the surrounding organs as various nasty bacteria laden bodily fluids pour into the abdominal cavity…Painful death, feverish, slow…Sepsis, not pretty."

Fuck. Shea knew he was not a stupid man, was pretty damn smart in fact, but there were some things he did not need to know. Lloyd's rambling monologue about the nastiness of stomach wounds was definitely right up there on that list.

Time to change topics.

"So, what did you say to make Jumbo want to knife you?"

While the guy who had pulled his modified tooth brush on Lloyd was the size of a mountain and had rage issues that made Erica look like Mother Teresa, it was a safe bet that Lloyd had instigated the event by saying the wrong thing. For a genius, he could be dumb as a brick.

"You know, comments like that contributed to his feelings of ostracism and persecution for what is clearly a rather extreme thyroid problem. Felton was previously non-violent, in here for possession. I suspect a relapse has caused a drug induced psychosis."

Shea blinked. Lloyd was a weird dude and, frankly, he did not spend time with him when they were on the inside. He had no real clue what the man did to pass his time. From the sound of that statement, he thought it sounded like the other man was analyzing his fellow inmates.

Not the safest hobby.

"Whatever," Shea mumbled, then nodded to the saturated cloth. "How long you think that's gonna keep you off of work detail?"

Lloyd winced. "If it doesn't kill me or go septic, not too long."

Good, Shea thought, nodding. Not that he really liked Lowery or anything, but he was getting used to the man. He was even coming to think that maybe racist wasn't exactly the right word for him, as he seemed to look down on almost everyone, not just minorities. It was like…some kind of weird, equal opportunity superiority and the racist shit that came out was because the man had no filter to strain out the things that most people wouldn't say.

Plus, he was good at his thing and that helped them catch fugitives and Shea liked having time taken off of his sentence. He was pretty sure there weren't many cons with Lowery's brains floating around in the penal system.

Poking around in the boxes, Shea found some towels and tossed some over to Lowery. The blood soaked cloth had to feel nasty by now, but the other man simply pressed the new towel over the old one.

Outside they could hear the sounds of the riot, but there were also the occasional whumps of non-lethal weapons (bean bag guns) and the zzzt's of stun batons. The CO's were gaining ground.

"Wonder if the women's side is like this." Erica, their other teammate was over there. Then he snorted. Girl was badass. She'd probably come out at the top of the pack in any fight.

"They were probably put on lockdown as soon as the alarm sounded," Lowery commented, then coughed and gasped. If possible, his skin lost more color and Shea though he was shaking. "Hey, if I die, tell Julianne…tell her I said to keep going a little further every week. Okay?"

Again, it had to be said that Lowery was weird. He might be dying and he wanted a message passed along to Julianne. Then again, considering Lowery was who he was, Julianne might be the only cute girl who'd ever been nice to him.

Kinda sad really.

Thankfully, before he could think on that any longer there was a pounding on the door and an order to open it or they'd break in.

Clearly the CO's had cleared the area.

"No trouble!" Shea yelled back, knowing the riot drill. "Just gotta move the locker. Two of us in here. Lowery got himself shanked. Not by me!"

As soon as the door was clear, officers burst in. Shea sat on the floor and, as was procedure, let his hands be zip tied. One of the CO's knelt by Lloyd and called for a gurney.

Across the room, Lowery met his eyes and gave a brief nod. Maybe they weren't the best of friends, but they were working toward a common goal.

They had each others backs.

* * *

><p>Comments, pretty please?<p> 


End file.
